বর্ণে গন্ধে ছন্দে গীতিতে ...

প্রীথিবির প্রতি ২৫ জন মানুষের এক জন বাংলায় কথা বলে। কিন্তু, দূঃখজনক হলেও সত্যি বাংলায় কোন ব্যবহারযোগ্য কম্পিউটার টাইপসেট এখন-ও উদ্ভাবন হয় নাই। সবেধন নীলমনি এই ফনেটিক বাংলা টাইপসেট। তাও এক্ষেত্রে, কোন নিরদিশটো বানাণ রীতি নেই, নেই কোন বানাণ সংশোধনের জন্য ডিকশনারী সুবিধা। পুরো লেখার কাজটাই যেন ভুল করতে করতে শেখার প্রক্রীয়া।

New Economics

Behavioral economics, social preference, Experimental approach to development economics - interesting horizons...

Why?............. (1)

Quintessential to all human being, mother of all questions, propagator to all breakthroughs - is there anything which is more humane than the small word 'why'? Without it humanity would still be in the caves fumbling with primitive existence; it's something that differentiates us from all the other species. For every individual there are actually 2 why's : one the big WHY faced by the humanity as a whole from the moment 'go' and another small why faced by each indivual in their own existence...... So, we all seek answers in our quest from the cradle to the grave. What are my answers?.......

Random 1

It was a cool night.. not a hint of breeze and weekend roads were largely deserted apart from the solitary passers-by taking brisk steps to reach homely comfort or the occasional tramp who has all the time in the world but at present needs a place to sleep. There was this calmness about the surroundings and if you strained your eyes through the damp neon light, you could even see the stars hung over head... I was walking through the aisle of this big blank slate of a road... sudden passing of stray vehicles would make this whoooshhhh sound and leave a trail of a light in its wake much like a quickly soluble line on a paper... the thought must have come suddenly or it would have already been there, I just became conscious of it's existence... Either way, it's like a confession in the dark or conversation with one's self....

Prof Md. Yunus - Guilty or not?

Prof. Md. Yunus is the Nobel prize winner economist from Bangladesh for his pioneering work to alleviate poverty through distributing small loans to the rural poor. Widely aclaimed as the banker to the poor, the nobel laureate finds himself in a fresh mix of controversy involving aid money from Norwegian Govt that was meant to be donation for the rural have-nots, but was allegedly used for some other purpose back in 1996. Now based on the information available so far, Prof. Yunus has not done anything criminally prosecutable, as apparently he, the donor agency (Norad) and the Norwegian Govt came to some sort of compropise, under which part of the aid money was returned back to the Norwegian Govt. Now, the problem is Dr. Yunus is no ordinary man; he is an global icon and in Bangladesh millions look up to him as a shining example of what we can achieve as a nation. In the coming days, we are bound to see a host of articles, stories and explanations... but, importantly, every ordinary citizen of Bangladesh will privately hold the same debate - whether the great man is really Great or he miserably let down a nation by flouting public trust. will keep you updated, meanwhile you can go to the BBC link attached with this post to have a general idea.

Shakib Al Hasan- the first sporting icon of Bangladesh

An icon is someone who transcends beyond his or her respective field of expertise and becomes part of social lores... Icons are important for holding the social fabric together by complementing other essential building blocks of a functioning society. Bangladesh is not a traditional sporting nation (like, USA or Australia) and does not boast any national sporting icon so far... But, Shakib Al Hasan, with his exploits on the cricket field and demeanor off the field, has successfully caught the imagination of a nation. Bangladesh, starved of any sporting success to mention so far, has experienced jubilation with Shakib single-handedly pulling off wins both at home and abroad..

Still at an early stage of his career, Shakib Al Hasan is bound to improve on his already formidable array of skills and bring accolades for his country. In this process, if he is able to keep his composure as he has done in his career so far, his countrymen will adore him and bestow upon him that halo of an icon for generations to come.....

Neo-Asset Bubble!

Economist Risk Alert, dated Oct 22, 2010: the rising and large scale capital flows to risky assets like emerging market equities are creating asset bubbles and potential bursting of the bubbles could mire the global economy into 2008-sque financial crisis....

....all the small investors in emerging capital markets (including Bangladesh), TAKE HEED! The next big market correction may be just round the corner.

Do Intelligent People Drink More Alcohol?

Where does it take us?

Does 'language' limits our capacity to think?

Read this rather interesting discourse.....

It seems to be an old debate initiated by Benjamin Lee Whorf, a US chemical engineer, about 70 years back. He hypothised use of words and associated concepts can effectively limit our capacity to think or visulalize. Using languages of North Amaerican natives as an example, he pointed out how due to absence of the words or concepts, they are unable to conceptualize the very notion of 'flow of time'.

Whorf's fantastical point of view, however, did not sustain because of a lack of hard evidence....

....Until more recently, about 50 years ago, when Roman Jakobson espoused the maxim: “Languages differ essentially in what they must convey and not in what they may convey.” Example? They provide some interesting ones - Say, you are an Englishman and you are saying "I spent the last evening with a neighbour", you are keeping the neighbour's sex in context; but, if you are German or French, you would be 'forced' to chose a 'sex' for the neighbour because of the very make up of the language. So, Jacobson says, when one speaks in a particular language, the language compels the speaker to make a habit of thinking certain concepts and notions or in a certain pattern which would be otherwise for another language.... (Ref: NYT)
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Note: how the topic has transformed over time - from a mechanical or functional discussion to a philosophical discourse.

To do or not to do....or yet another option!

Mr. 'X' is a friend of mine. He is educated, a rational human being. In practical aspects of things, he can be described as an averagely smart individual who can navigate in this complex world of ours without much fuss. He is not too naive or not overly endowed. All in all a general citizen.
.....Now, the dilemma faced by Mr. X that I am about to describe started a few months back, when his father Mr. Y suddenly fell sick. Mr. Y is an octogenarian biding his time among family & friends as a retired public servent. He is diabetic but otherwise of average health. One day, while playing with his grand son at home, Mr. Y felt a suddent but acute chest pain; he is not totally unknown to pains in this long life of his, but this was something different. He was left breathless by the sudden attack, and sweating profusely, clutching his chest, he almost fell to the ground. Fortunately, his son Mr. X was close by....
Once in the hospital, all the usual tests were duly completed. The doctors had no doubt that something serious was afoot concerning Mr. Y's heart. So, came the ECG, the EET, and the angiogram. To cut the long story short, doctors diagnosed 'angina' in two of the major arteries in his heart. Upto this point, everything was pretty straight forward!
...Mr X, now consults a number of heart specialists to find the right treatment for his ailing father. But, alas! specialists through at him a number of options-
He can either choose angioplast, which does not require a surgery, but is expensive and not sure to cure his father; or he can go for the major heart bypass surgery, which will almost definitely cure the heart condition but, itself is a risky procedure, and it does not help the fact that Mr. Y does want to face the horror of an open chest procedure; or there is yet another option called EECP, which is totally non-invasive and an exercise of the heart, but for which the efficacy is not proven.... Mr. X is in real dilemma... what to do or not to do or yet another option!